Ji t 9 jfl 9MHII .ijiJUii Platonic

Rip It Up, Issue 224, 1 April 1996, Page 20

Ji t 9 jfl 9MHII .ijiJUii Platonic

I’m sitting in the infamous Wildside boardroom, usually home to the hairy and hard boiled, getting a lesson in longterm relationships fit for a feel-good Oprah session, from two lovely chaps who could almost be described as clean cut. The happy couple in question are Second Child core members Damien Binder (vocals, guitars) and Chris van de Geer (guitars, keyboards). They were introduced to each other in late 1987, by now Eye TV drummer Luke Casey, “and thus a beautiful relationship was born”, according to Damien.

What’s that, nine years ago? A quick tally ensues. Damien gasps: “It is, it will be.” “Into the ninth year,” agrees Chris. “That’s crazy, eh?” Indeed, Damien, crazy would be one word for it. Most marriages don’t last that long. “It’s true,” says Damien, then has a mock reconsideration about the relationship, snarling at Chris: “I don’t like you.” Undeterred, Chris claims: “We’re a fine example for children worldwide.” “And we haven’t managed to sleep together the whole time,” says Damien. That’s a bummer for both of you, I’m sure. Damien: “Well, it’s been a temptation.”

bemoans Damien. “Those drunken lonely nights,” sings Chris. “The inevitable things, y’know,” confides Damien. I sure do. I’m surprised something hasn’t happened yet. “So are our girlfriends,” laughs Damien.

Of course, there is a reason for all this talk of things warm and fuzzy (or should that be wet and smutty?), and that is Second Child’s new album, Slinky. I understand the album grew from your initial intention to simply record the ‘Disappear’ single. “It sorta took a bit of a life of its own the day before we went into the studio,” explains Chris. “We thought: ‘We’ll do ‘Disappear’ as a single, do a B-side, and put it out.’ Then we thought: ‘lf we’re gonna do two songs, we’re gonna do an EP.’ Then we thought: ‘EP, we’ll do six songs.’

Chris: “Yeah, when we go through our crazy, Lollapalooza, drug stage, I’m sure we’ll have to do it then, I suppose.” “It’s so hard when two friends are so close,”

Then, the day before we went into the studio...” “So, we were quite organised,” adds Damien. “We were just talking to a friend and he said: ‘Well, if you’re doing six, why [not] just do the album?’ We just went home and said: ‘Okay, we’ll do the album.’ I’m really glad we made the decision, because the songs we weren’t sure [about] turned out to be really good and fresh for it.” So, you found yourself ready to do it? “We were writing in the studio for a couple of songs, like writing lyrics and new melodies, so it was a bit harrowing, like: ‘What are we doing?’,” says Damien. “But it came off really well, because Chris and I had some late night sessions where we were just inventing stuff on the spot, and you can hear it. It’s fresh and spontaneous: ‘We’ve got the take, let’s move on.’”

What’s drawn the new material towards the hard-edged pop sound? “With Magnet [EP, Wildside, 1991], what me and Damien wanted to do as a band was to try and be completely original as we could, which is what Magnet ended up being,” explains Chris. “I read an old interview yesterday that asked the question of who our influences [were], and our answer was something like: ‘We’re more influenced by what we don’t wanna sound like,’ which, at the time, was true. If anything sounded like something, I just refused to play it. So, once we got that out of our system, we kind of had the grounding to completely know we could do our own sound, and whatever we came out with would sound a bit more interesting and different...” “We relaxed,” adds Damien. “Yeah, and we were able to work in the framework of writing pop songs, but still add our sort of sound to it. That’s why I’m glad we did stuff like that, ’cause I think it allows us to do guitar pop which will still sound a bit more original than...” The sum of the influences? “Yeah.”

“That’s that whole teenage angst thing as well,” says Damien. “It’s all done on one record. You can hear it, like six minute songs — six minute howls — of sexual tension and alienation, and that’s all gone on that record, so we don’t have to do that any more.” Can you say you’ve managed to come of age? “Yeah, we’re definitely boring old fuckers now,” says Chris. D: “A lot of people who have heard [Slinky] say it’s such a mature sound,” says Damien. “I suppose we’ve grown up a lot.” Do you think you’ll have to face off criticism from older fans when Slinky comes out — as was the case when ‘Hold Back’ [single, Wildside, 1993] was released. “I think it’s passed,” says Chris. “People just like to hold you close to where they were at the time,” says Damien. “It’s like Keith Richards says, maybe they were getting laid when they heard the record.” Maybe they haven’t since. Chris laughingly adopts a frighteningly sexually frustrated persona: “‘I can’t wait for the next Second Child album, please. When’s it coming out? March? Please, March.’ “It is crap. I mean, get a life, if you’re still complaining about what we’re doing in 1996, and worrying about what we released in 1991.1 think people have forgotten about the old thing. It’s the whole thing with, like, Max, you’ve got all this young audience. There’s all these new people coming through, and it’s like people who used to like us have moved forward with us, or are listening to something else. “People have this perception, any time we write a pop song we’ve sold-out, which is such crap. I’ve never written anything or recorded anything because we haven’t wanted it that way. How could you write a song and sell-out anyway? The state music is in, when you’ve got people like Nirvana or someone’s gonna outsell Michael Jackson, who can gauge what’s gonna be a sell-out song? We wanted that album’s style to be that way because that’s how we wanted it.” Chris admits self producing the album, with Damien as co-producer, meant some things on the album could have been improved on, but Damien says overall they really like Slinky. “I play it,” says Damien. “It’s quite hard for me, usually, but I really enjoy the mood of the record, overall.” Speaking of moods, lyric specifics-wise, somebody seems to have weathered some pretty sad relationships. A little shuffling ensues, and Chris indicates Damien: “Here’s your man.” Damien, the broken heart. Is that correct? “Aah, probably to a certain extent,” Damien admits. “But, I mean, I wrote a lot of the lyrics to

those songs when I was in a happy, thriving relationship. ‘Crumble’, for example, I was happy in a relationship when I wrote that. I can understand that, I’ve been through that, and I can delve into it, but... yeah... I suppose that’s fair comment.” While hesitant to talk about the song’s subjects, Damien is the first to admit the lengths he goes to say what he wants to say. “All the lyrics are slaved over. I spend months hating them, then going back and rewriting them. If I get four lines, it’s like: ‘Oh, wow, the skies have opened, thankyou, brilliant.’ I can’t seem to write about anyone else except myself, or the people I see around me, the people close to me, the things I see in them which I can put into a song. I wish I could be a bit more removed sometimes, but I suppose that’ll just come with age — be a little bit less direct, less personal... but I’m really happy with the lyrics on the record, and I hope people do get something from it. They are personal.” Chris gives his take on the sad angle: “A few people’s comments back sometimes get words like ‘quite down’, or ‘morose’, which people sometimes get off the lyrics, with their comments about ‘Disappear’ [single, Wildside, 1995]. I never found them depressing or down. I think because a lot of them are based on an unsuccessful relationship that’s going through a bit of trouble at the time, people take that as a negative thing. ‘Disappear’ conjures up these images of someone who’s not feeling that good [and] will sit down and listen to [a certain] song.” “I think it’s quite hopeful as well,” says Damien. “‘I know that you know me 1 1 know that you can’t just disappear’, and other songs, like ‘Stay on Course’: ‘Stay on course with me, don’t stray’.” “There’s a lot of lyric things which are doing that,” adds Chris. “The first half of the song is about it not working out, but the chorus, or the end result, or the end verse, could be about saying: ‘lt may not have worked out now, but there’s still some good things about it,’ or there’s something there, or something could happen.” “I’m not all, like, [feigns a sob],” says Damien. “There’s a little light there, at the end of the song tunnel.” A similar dichotomy exists in Damien’s actual writing of the songs. “The biggest joy for me, personally, is writing a song in my bedroom that I think is good, and is pretty much finished, and these lines are cornin’ out of nowhere, and there’s chord changes, and the melody’s just right... then is beautiful, and the rest of it’s fuckin’ hard work. I mean, recording’s great fun, and sometimes, like on this record, there’s been some times when it was quite thrilling because we were inventing stuff on the spot, but most of it’s a hard graft.” “That’s where I come from the other side of it,” explains Chris. “With Damien, that’s like the best part, and for me, I kind of like hearing that initial great thing Damien’s got, and going: ‘Aw, cool, now this mood, better put this here,’ and then that recording side of it where I can add guitars, textures, BVs and stuff to it. That’s probably because that initial lyric or melody’s not mine. For me, I get more out of moving it on from that initial stage.” Do you feel fortunate your relationship’s turned into something of those two halves that compliment each other? “We do actually compliment each other, ’cause Chris has produced the record, he came up with all the sounds that we were hinting at and wanted, and it’s so good to have someone who technically can come up with the goods in the band,” says Damien. “He writes songs with me, and when we’re writing the song in the bedroom, we can talk about the sounds we’re gonna use in the studio when we haven’t even finished it — and he can get those too, which is thrilling.” Chris says: “Me and Damien work very closely in the whole direction of the band, and we’re best friends, so we’ve come to the understanding... We used to have a lot of creative tension years ago, which is cool, ’cause every band does. Now we sort of know what our possiblities and limitations of each other are. It was amazing for the album that me and Damien were up there by ourselves for hours, and we had absolutely fuck all arguments. I knew we wouldn’t have many anyway, but I didn’t expect it to be this smoothly, considering the amount of stress and pressure on us to get this thing done by ourselves, and there’s so much decision making to be done. I was amazed that we came out with so few arguments.” The product of this harmonious union is due out early April, with touring scheduled to commence later in the month.

BRONWYN TRUDGEON